


The Orchard (the Bittersweet Temptation Remix)

by Anonymous



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Remix, Self-Deception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-05 05:36:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20483729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Crowley hadn't set out to tempt Aziraphale.





	The Orchard (the Bittersweet Temptation Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Orchard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19719523) by [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth). 

Crowley hadn't set out to tempt Aziraphale. He'd _thought_ about it, of course. He was a demon; temptation was his purpose. And viewed objectively, tempting an angel would be quite a coup for him.

But when it really came down to it, Crowley just wasn't ambitious enough to make the whole thing seem worthwhile. Yes, he might be able to tempt Aziraphale into falling. ("Might" being the operative word. Aziraphale was made of surprisingly stern stuff, for someone who looked rather like a blancmange in the shape of an angel.) But if Crowley did manage it--what then?

Angels, to state the obvious, had a tendency to go bad when they fell. Just look at Hastur or Beelzebub. You'd never guess that they'd been fun to hang out with once. Less stuck-up than the other angels, more willing to cock a snook at the status quo. Until they fell, anyway, and all of their cool rebelliousness soured into petty viciousness.

Despite being considerably less rebellious at heart, Aziraphale wasn't a bad sort, for an angel. Decent conversationalist, good taste in wine, not too holier-than-thou despite his job description. Less likely to stab Crowley in the back than any demon _and_ less likely to stab him in the front than any other angel.

If Aziraphale were a demon, on the other hand, the odds were all too high that he'd be a very bad sort indeed. When Crowley weighed the near-certain loss of his only tolerable acquaintance against the literal chance in hell of a promotion, it was no contest.

So, no, Crowley hadn't intended to tempt Aziraphale. Not consciously. But they'd been strolling through an apple orchard together, Aziraphale even more golden and glowing than the muzzy afternoon sunlight, and he supposed it was just...in his nature.

To pluck a perfect blushing apple and sprawl beneath a tree on the soft grass, giving a bare invitation to join him that he knew Aziraphale would accept. To bite into the apple, inexorably aware of Aziraphale's heavy gaze as the taste burst across his tongue, sharper and sweeter than any apple he'd ever eaten before, so that a moan spilled from his throat even as he lapped up the trickling juice with his tongue, unwilling to lose a drop. To open eyes that had fluttered closed in pleasure and fasten them on Aziraphale's shining face.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale said, in that half-amused, half-reproachful tone that he used so often these days and that warmed Crowley inexplicably to hear.

"Mmm?" Crowley said. He took another bite, then licked his lips. Aziraphale really needed to try this. Or Crowley could pick him his own apple, if Aziraphale didn't like the idea of sharing, and if Crowley could make himself shift from his exceedingly comfortable position.

"Must you?"

"Must I what? 's a good apple." He waggled his eyebrows dramatically. "Can I tempt you into--"

"Crowley!" Aziraphale said, a little sharper, but still with an undercurrent of warm humour.

"What?!" Crowley said mockingly. "Seriously, you'll like it. I don't have half your palate, and I'm still enjoying it like nobody's business."

"That doesn't mean you need to be so pornographic about it!"

The words lingered in the air as though scrawled there. Crowley didn't think he'd ever heard Aziraphale use that word before. (No, that was a lie. He hadn't, and he _knew_ he hadn't.) For his part, Aziraphale looked equally shocked to have used it.

The funniest thing about the accusation was that Crowley hadn't actually meant to do it. Oh, he'd been playing up his enjoyment of the apple a little--though probably not as much as Aziraphale imagined--but he hadn't been trying to tempt Aziraphale _sexually_. Among other things, he'd never have guessed that such a temptation would work; Aziraphale had never gone in for that sort of thing before, to Crowley's knowledge.

He _had_ admittedly been trying to appeal to Aziraphale's gluttony, which was a sin Aziraphale had a more than passing familiarity with, though it didn't seem to have done him any harm yet. And somehow he'd managed to completely overshoot the mark and land them...here. With Aziraphale staring at Crowley's wet mouth in a way that apparently had a lot more to do with _Crowley's actual mouth_ than with the apple he'd been devouring.

Cornered, Crowley took the only option a self-respecting demon had in these somewhat bizarre circumstances, in which his very deliberate temptation failed and his very accidental one succeeded. He brazened it out.

He laughed once. "That was kind of the point, you know. Demon. Tempting." He met Aziraphale's eyes and licked his lips again, slowly. Then he finished eating the apple, both because it really was a delicious apple, and because he didn't have any better ideas of what to do next. He tossed the apple core aside and wiped his mouth clean, then began to lick his fingers.

Before he could put the first one to his mouth, Aziraphale caught his wrist and Crowley froze in place. They stared at their two hands together. "This is new," Crowley noted.

"Yes," Aziraphale agreed, and he slowly raised Crowley's hand to his lips.

An odd sound filled Crowley's ears as he watched in mute anticipation. (Several hundred years later, the radio would be invented. The first time Crowley heard static, he shouted, "Aha!" and startled the salesperson demonstrating the device to him.) He didn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't for Aziraphale to press a gentle kiss to the back of his hand.

Even less did he expect Aziraphale to follow that kiss with another, at the join of his thumb. And then Aziraphale's tongue darted out to taste his skin, sticky with apple juices, and Crowley stopped expecting anything at all.

He just sat there, tense and silent and breathless, as Aziraphale made love to his hand, alternating soft kisses and even softer licks, tracing back to knuckle to palm to fingertip. Aziraphale's clear eyes met his with what seemed to Crowley quiet deliberation, and then he put the tip of Crowley's finger into his mouth and _sucked_.

Crowley's cock, normally so well behaved whenever he hadn't called it into service, was suddenly as unruly as a human's. It hardened in his breeches as though it, too, were straining towards Aziraphale's mouth. Aziraphale flickered his tongue along the fingertip, and Crowley moaned, purely unintentionally.

Aziraphale smiled. He pulled back slightly, though he never released his grasp on Crowley's hand. "You look lovely, my dear," he said, and Crowley felt an all too obvious blush stain his cheeks, and a hopefully less obvious throb in his cock at the words. He could will the blush, not to mention the erection, away with a thought--except he couldn't, because Aziraphale was staring at him with that achingly sincere expression and holding his hand warmly in his, and Crowley hadn't a hope of thinking anything coherent right now.

Another gentle kiss to his palm, and yet another, and then Aziraphale placed Crowley's hand carefully on the grass and let go.

"Wha--" Crowley's voice cracked. He cleared it and tried again. "What was that all about, angel?"

Aziraphale gave him a prim smile. "I wanted to taste that apple. You did say it was very good."

Crowley's face went even hotter. He closed his hand--now wet from Aziraphale's mouth rather than from the apple--into a fist, as though to hide it from view.

Aziraphale's eyes crinkled slightly with concern, and Crowley took a deep, deliberate breath. "Lovely", Aziraphale had called him, and Aziraphale wouldn't lie. Not about something like that. And Aziraphale _had_ been tempted, even if he'd managed to turn it back on Crowley in the end.

No wonder Aziraphale had gotten through all these millennia without falling, despite his obvious love of fine food and wine and sumptuous clothing, if this was any demonstration of his ability to resist real temptation. Well, Crowley could take on the mindless lust with little difficulty, and Aziraphale could keep the faintly amused celestial love, or whatever he'd managed to transform his feelings into. Division of labour was beneficial for relationships, after all.


End file.
